Crime > Sentence Length: Countries Compared

Do long prison sentences deter criminals or are they an indication of a severe crime problem?

Colombia has the longest average prison sentence length, at 137 years. It also leads the world in kidnappings (total, per $ GDP and per capita), murders per capita, mortality due to assaults by explosive material(total and per capita), mortality due to assaults by other and unspecified firearm discharge per capita, and mortality due to assaults by sharp objects per capita.

Colombia is second for murders with firearms (total and per capita) and third for total murders. It is also in the top five for mortality due to assault in 18 of the 22 recorded categories.

Citation

"Countries Compared by Crime > Sentence Length. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002)
(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention). Aggregates compiled by NationMaster. Retrieved from http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Sentence-Length

"Countries Compared by Crime > Sentence Length. International Statistics at NationMaster.com, The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002)
(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention). Aggregates compiled by NationMaster." 2002. <http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Sentence-Length>.

'Countries Compared by Crime > Sentence Length. International Statistics at NationMaster.com, The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002)
(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention). Aggregates compiled by NationMaster.', <http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Sentence-Length> [assessed 2002]

Do long prison sentences deter criminals or are they an indication of a severe crime problem?

Colombia has the longest average prison sentence length, at 137 years. It also leads the world in kidnappings (total, per $ GDP and per capita), murders per capita, mortality due to assaults by explosive material(total and per capita), mortality due to assaults by other and unspecified firearm discharge per capita, and mortality due to assaults by sharp objects per capita.

Colombia is second for murders with firearms (total and per capita) and third for total murders. It is also in the top five for mortality due to assault in 18 of the 22 recorded categories.

Posted on 23 Mar 2005

Ian Graham, Staff Editor

0

is this years, months, days? Romania is really had average sentences 37,488 longer than Canada?

Posted on 04 May 2014

Anonym

0

Thank you, Ian Graham for your statistics which whilst interesting, no one requested. Why don't you actually explain as staff editor what on earth are the units of this currently meaningless data as everyone else has actually wants to know